1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the invention disclosed generally relate to systems and associated methods for communications between a server application and client applications in a networked computing environment. In particular, embodiments of the invention are directed to two-way communications between a server application and client applications using instant messaging.
2. Description of the Related Art
Because high speed networks facilitate effective team collaboration, globally distributed teams can operate without the need to be co-located. Meetings are routinely conducted using computer and telephony networks. For example, often the World Wide Web (“Web”) and telephone networks are used to facilitate a meeting. In some cases, such collaborative work uses instant messaging (IM). As used here, IM refers generally to technology that allows the transmission of electronic messages in real time. More particularly, IM refers to a communications service that facilitates real time communications over the Internet. Still more particularly, IM is a technology (that is, methods or systems) that allow text-based messages to be transmitted in real time over computer networks such as the Internet. Increasingly, IM technology has been extended to include the transmission of images, files, hyperlinks, and other types of data other than text-based data. Publicly available applications such as Microsoft Messenger and Google Talk, as well as private or secured applications within organizations, are commonly used. The use of IM clients that can connect to more than one such application is also becoming routine.
Online meetings can be conducted using presentations (“presentations”) or show-and-tell type demonstrations (“demonstrations”). Often, participants join a telephone conference with a presenter and have access to conference materials either via a local copy of the conference materials (common in presentations) or via a Web conference (common in demonstrations).
In the case of a presentation where all parties view the material locally, a presenter may desire that all participants view the same part of the material as the presentation proceeds. Often, to ensure synchronicity, the presenter constantly calls out the part of the material currently viewed, making the process distracting and ineffective. Even so, there can be no assurance that all participants are synchronized. For example, if a participant temporarily focuses on a different task, the participant might quickly be out of synchronization and needs to interrupt the presenter.
In the case of a demonstration, the material is accessible typically only to the presenter. Usually, participants view the material via a Web conference in which the presenter's interactions with the material are broadcast to the participants using a stream of non-interactive graphics. With this approach, participants do not have access to the actual material and are restricted to viewing only those interactions that the presenter chooses. Even in cases where the participants have access to the material locally (for example, a demonstration copy of an installed product) participants are unable to see in the local context the presenter's interactions with the material. Such a demonstration can become an ineffective learning process for the participants. Further, the broadcast of high resolution graphics to a large audience is often costly and impractical, resulting in wasted bandwidth for example. Additionally, this approach requires infrastructure that facilitates Web conferencing.
There exists a continuing desire for technology that facilitates communications via networks. Embodiments of the invention disclosed here are directed to various aspects, improvements, etc., of networked communications such as those described above.